Description: He is a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in riddles, lovingly sprinkled with intrigue, express mailed to Mystery, Alaska, and LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! but it is too late. You're dead. For he is the Spy - globetrotting rogue, lady killer (metaphorically) and mankiller (for real).

Voiced by Dennis Bateman, who also voiced the Pyro and, for Left 4 Dead, the helicopter pilot in No Mercy, the Spy is easily the most complex class to use, and the most deadly. The Spy (when not disguised) is dressed in a team-colored pinstripe suit, balaclava, and tie, and is almost always found smoking a cigarette. In the trailer "Meet the Spy" it is revealed by The BLU Spy that The RED Spy is having a romantic relationship with The BLU Scout's mother. His accent suggests that he is from France.

The Spy's primary weapon is a Magnum revolver. It takes practice to master, but criticals are deadly with it. It can kill most classes with it and a follow up shot, which should take less than 1.5 seconds.

Next is the Spy's Electro-Sapper. This device emits a powerful electric charge when attached to an Engineer's buildings, slowly damaging and destroying them, if the Engineer doesn't destroy the sapper first.
Thirdly is your balisong, or butterfly knife. On a direct hit in front, it will do about 40 damage, making it the second weakest melee weapon for default hits. However it has the ability of killing in a single hit, if used while targeting an enemy's back. The advantage is your enemy won't know who killed them until it's much too late. The disadvantage is that it removes your disguise once you have swung. Note that you no random critical hits, so do not think that it CAN be more effective than the revolver in close range.

Lastly, and likely your most useful tool is your disguise kit, called the Spytron 3000, which is hidden in the Spy's cigarette case. Disguised, a good Spy can sneak behind enemy lines and destroy them from the inside. However, while the Spy can sneak past the enemy defenses, they take a lot of skill, practice, and luck to use effectively, as the defensive is always watching for Spies. As such, when using one, you should study where the majority of the enemy team is, what class they use the most, and use this info to blend in. You must act like one of them, such as coming out of the enemy respawn point and watching what they're doing. When you see an opening to sap some sentries and get away with it, take it, cloak, run away, and switch disguises. This is important, don't keep using the same disguise over and over, eventually the enemy will note what class is usually a Spy and will focus on them.

The Spy has a useful special ability, the ability to render themselves invisible for ten seconds. It is not perfect, however, as being shot and bumped into will disrupt the cloak slightly, making you look like a blue or red ghost, (depending on which team you belong to) revealing your class. It takes a full thirty seconds for it to recharge when completely drained. Also, when cloaked, you will see the Spy's wristwatch slowly ticking off green bars. When those bars run out, so does your cloak. You also cannot attack or plant sappers while cloaked, but you can change disguises. One last note is that you should avoid pyros like the plague, as their flames will highlight you, even when cloaked. With one of the game updates the cloaking ability will now replenish whenever you pick up ammo or scrap metal. This also applies to dispensers which means you can stay cloaked indefinitely provided you stay near the dispenser.

The Cloak and Dagger is one of the unlockable wrist watches for the Spy. The C&D (as it is referred to a lot by other players in-game) has the ability to recharge while you're standing still, it even recharges in half the time of the default watch. With the C&D it is very easy to get behind enemies undetected, you can use this to your advantage.

A good thing to do on CTF maps is use the Cloak and Dagger to sneak behind enemy lines, and do what a Spy is meant to do... spy. Hide somewhere near the enemy respawn and stay invisible, watching and waiting. Try to stay close to a wall, in the middle of it, as corners are a popular place for enemies to shoot at to check for spies (But almost nobody checks the middle of a wall!). Just wait and watch, giving info to your team when you see something unusual, like a large group of Heavies and Medics getting together. Using this, you can warn your team of the impending attack and they can set up to protect themselves. It can also be used to spot enemy Spies. People tend to disguise as soon as they leave the respawn, or while in it, so you can watch for this and let your team know that there is a Spy coming and what character he is disguised as. Very useful in matches with large amounts of people.

Never yell "Medic!" repetitively, it draws enemy attention to you, something you do NOT want. Also, the enemy team can see in the chat the voice of who you are impersonating, which is something you do NOT want either.

Milestone 1: After unlocking 5 Spy achievements, the player will automatically obtain the Ambassador, a replacement for the Revolver that can do critical damage on headshots at the cost of slower firing speed and less damage per shot.

Milestone 2: After unlocking 11 Spy achievements, you unlock the Cloak and Dagger, a invisibility watch. The watch has a shorter time spent cloaked if the player is moving, but if the player is standing still, they can stay cloaked forever. After running out of cloak the player will look like he was bumped into constantly until he is still, gets killed, or decloaks.

Milestone 3: After unlocking 16 Spy achievements, the Dead Ringer is given to the player. This is a different type of watch, as it cannot make the user cloaked by themselves. This can be pulled out instantly, and when the player takes damage while it is out, the player is completely cloaked no matter what except for Jarate, Bleeding, Mad Milk, Afterburn, water, and other particle effects. While cloaked, the user has a 90% damage resistance to everything. The cloak time is very slightly longer than the Cloak and Dagger.

If the enemy sees you, they'll alert the rest of the team to your disguise choice. Also, if you cloak and are in disguise and bump into someone or are shot by the other team, they'll see your outline so try to stay away from large crowds. Try to disguise yourself as a class that is used by a lot of people on the other team, since the game gives you a name of one of the enemy players at random using the class you chose, so if the other team has only one Scout, and you disguise yourself as a scout, you always have their name and the player you're impersonating will know you're a Spy once he spots you.

Avoid running directly into enemies.

Teammates can pass through each other, but the same can't be done with enemies. Which obviously means that if you bump into an enemy when disguised, the enemy team will know you're a Spy if you haven't vanished within the next second.

Put a sapper on the sentry and quickly backstab the Engineer as he tries to destroy the sapper, or sap the sentry and shoot it to destroy it before the Engineer can remove the sapper. (Be careful of other sentries and enemies in the area). It is possible to continually set sappers on buildings and wear down the Engineer trying to repair them. If they do not concentrate on trying to damage or kill the Spy while repairing, continuous use of sappers will destroy the building or allow teammates the ability to charge in.

They are every Spy's worst enemy, because their flamethrowers will set you on fire no matter what, and they are usually enlisted by engineers to safeguard their sentries.

Pretend to be one of them.

Your number one skill as a Spy is your ability to look like a member of the enemy team. Wherever possible, avoid letting the enemy see you as a Spy. Once they know you're playing a Spy they'll be much more alert. Luckily, the paranoia induced in a team from the knowledge that there is an enemy Spy wandering around is worth playing a Spy for in itself. It takes a couple of seconds to disguise yourself, so try not to be discovered.

Think before you disguise.

The Spy is the thinker's class. You need to outwit your enemy. After your first couple of infiltrations, it's fairly likely the enemy is on the lookout for you. They'll be watching for anyone on their team who's doing anything out of the ordinary. You need to watch the enemy so you can become one of them. Pick your disguise carefully, and change it whenever you're alone and the disguise is no longer fitting. If the enemy has one Sniper, and he's defending the base entrance, don't disguise yourself as a Sniper and walk into their Flag room.

Think before you shoot.

As a Spy, attacking anyone is not a decision to be made lightly. This is because when you attack, you lose your disguise. That's right. You're back to looking like a Spy, and you can be sure that any enemies who see you won't be amused that you've been pretending to be their buddy for the past 2 minutes. The only exception to this rule is the knife Your Eternal Reward, as it disguises you as the person you backstabbed, but you cannot normally disguise.

Be careful when picking up Flags.

Some maps have objects that remove your disguise. For example, in Capture The Flag maps, if you grab the enemy Flag while you're disguised, your disguise will be lost, and you won't be able to re-disguise while carrying it.

Knife them in the back.

When used right, your knife is the most lethal weapon you carry. If you stab an enemy in the back with it, it'll kill them in one hit. Bear in mind that as a result you'll lose your disguise, and you can be sure that if there are enemies around to notice this, they won't be amused.

Out of sight, out of mind.

If you're about to kill a victim on the enemy team, and they find you trying to kill them, it's best to use your cloaking abilty to flee, and if they think you're going to come back and take the kill, it will be a very easy to escape with the Cloak and Dagger or the Dead Ringer.

Stair stabbing is one of the hardest tricks to master. To perform a stair stab you must be on a ramp or a flight of stairs. Make sure you currently have no disguise and an enemy is chasing you. When an enemy is coming up the stairs you have a height advantage which allows you to jump higher than normal. When you are airborne make sure you are facing the enemy (who is coming up the stairs) then when you sail over him, quickly turn around and while in mid-air backstab his exposed back. This move works on beginner-immediate players but may not work on advanced players, as they probably will expect you to stair stab them.

Drop stabbing is inspired by the traditional assination method of the best-selling franchise: 'Assassin's Creed'. To perform a drop stab you must be on an elevated platform of some kind, overlooking your target. When an enemy is moving under the player's elevated platform Eg. A bridge, you have to jump off the bridge and quickly drop down either behind him or on top of him. If you land ontop of him, quickly crouch and then your knife will go up, backstabbing the enemy. If you land behind him run forward and stab him. Tip: Make sure you are cloaked while standing on the elevated platform, otherwise people will see you.

This backstabbing technique involves hitting an enemy with the knife in a second that you are under them. It is typically used on pursuers of the Spy when the victim is falling from a height and the Spy can abuse this to strafe under the victim using the horizontal arrow keys and stab them for the brief moment the victim is exposed. The technique sometimes involves standing still before strafing to confuse an enemy and thereby generally forcing them to move in a predictible pattern and allow for an opportunity to get under the victim as they fall. The Understab is also known for being a risky counter to the above mentioned Overhead/Stairstab as the player is turning. The understab can also be used on unaware enemies in areas such as spawns where players drop from a height or other common paths that have drops that the Spy can use.

The Heavy has the most health points of all characters and his minigun causes considerable damage. He is slow, large, bald and has a thick Russian accent. He wears combat boots, a team-colored shirt with the Heavy's insignia displayed on his shoulder, as well as an armored vest and a bandolier of shells, for his minigun.

His weapons include his enormous fists, a pump-action Shotgun, and his custom-built minigun (affectionately named Sasha, of which he is very possessive) which, according to the Team Fortress 2 promo video, "Weighs 150 kilograms and fires $200 custom-tooled cartridges at 10,000 rounds per minute."

The Heavy also reveals, with no small amount of satisfaction, that it costs "$400,000 to fire this weapon for 12 seconds."

These guys were built to be the tanks of any team, with a massive 300 health they'll brush off three Rockets from a Soldier, a full three magazines from a Scout'sScattergun, and an assortment of other normally fatal weapons. And with a Minigun magazine of 200 rounds, Heavys can spray the field with lead for a substantial amount of time; enough for their team to capitalize on. Keep in mind that the accuracy and range is low and Heavys can have a problem damaging opponents from a certain point of range. The stock minigun does take about 0.87 second to rev up to speed, but their special ability allows the motor to be kept running without firing to be constantly prepared. Heavys can make or break a team, depending which side they're on. Medic/Heavy combos are a popular offensive team, with the Medic keeping the Heavy fighting fit and the Heavy keeping the Medic covered while they charge the objective. Heavy/Engineer is also a good combo for a solid defense. The Heavy keeps the engineer safe while he constructs his buildings, and in return, the Engineer's Dispenser gives the Heavy a bottomless ammo supply and a small amount of health.

Despite his great offensive abilities, the Heavy does have one drawback: his massive body. The Heavy's girth can seriously slow him down, making him vulnerable against other classes and their large back provide the perfect target for a Spy. Also, thanks to his slow speed (which, pitifully, halves when the Heavy fires his minigun), Snipers tend to make them their favorite target practice dummies, taking perverse pleasure in turning their heads into a "fine red mist".

Russian boxer Nikolai Valuev (sometimes typed Valujev) may be the inspiration behind the Heavy class. As both of them are Russian, they both are very big and they both look very similar to each other. Not to mention Heavy's unlockable weapon, KGB, or Killing Gloves of Boxing.

Don't go on Offense with this class until you're fairly experienced. You're the slowest moving class in the game, and you'll be picked off by any decent enemy snipers before you even get into the enemy base. You're one of the strongest defensive classes in the game. Just keep firing your assault cannon at anyone firing at you, and they'll be the ones to die first, with the exception of other heavys. Then it matters which minigun you have and the enemy, and usually who spins up first as any minigun can kill another heavy under 1 second at close range.

Work in relatively open areas.

Your assault cannon takes a second or two to wind up before it begins firing. This means that it's not a good idea to guard places where a Scout can appear and get past you before you've begun firing. Enclosed spaces are also bad for you because they allow the enemy to jump out, lob rockets and grenades at you, and then duck back behind cover before you can hit them. That said, large open spaces are also dangerous for you due to your slow speed. Snipers and Soldiers can pick you off from a distance, where the inaccurate fire of your assault cannon render it fairly ineffective. Luckily, enemy snipers rarely make it into your base. An ideal defensive position for a HW Guy is at one end of a long corridor that enemies have to move through, allowing you to fire at them as they approach.

Stand in doorways.

Scouts hate you. You're their worst nightmare. The only thing on an enemy Scout's mind when he sees a HW Guy on Defense is "How can I get past him?". Do your part to make it harder for Scouts by standing in doorways that they need to get through. Scouts will run up and attempt to squeeze by you. Ignore them if they're shooting at you, less than half the health you have. Wind up your minigun and let 'em have it. If you're feeling particularly nasty in a Capture The Flag map, go and stand right on top of your Flag with a dispenser prefereably and even a medic in cases of hard times.

Work with a Medic or Engineer.

Try and get an Engineer or Medic to defend near you, so that you can get them to heal you and replenish your ammo, as your minigun can fire all of its bullets in under 20 seconds. Since you're so slow, it takes you longer than any other class to get to the nearest Resupply Room, stock up, and return to your position. If you've got a Medic and/or Engineer nearby to save you the trouble, you can ensure your position is never left undefended. Remember to use your "Call for Medic!" key to signal that you need assistance from them. Also, a level three dispenser and a medic will make a extremely difficult task for anything to get past, as the heavy can keep a constant 450 or 420 health with the Warriors Spirit, and can also continuously fire your minigun. Yes, thats right. Holding down fire at the entrance will have you keep a full 200 ammo and deter everything, even cloaked spies, and probably Dead Ringer spies.

The Heavy's real name is unknown, but it's first name is referred to as Ivan, by Max from Sam and Max, and by one of his achievements.

The Heavy is the tallest class in the game.

The Heavy is commonly known to gamers as the "face" of Team Fortress 2, as he was the first character to have a "Meet the Team" video and his avatar is much bigger than everyone else's on the box art for the game. He is also one of the guest stars in the Telltale game, Poker Night At the Inventory, where a player can play poker against the Heavy, Max from Sam and Max, Strong Bad from Homestar runner.com, and Tycho from the penny Arcade Web comic, and gain rare promotional items for team fortress 2 including Tychos watch for the spy, Strong Bad's Dangersque glasses for the demoman, Max's Luger for the scout and Engineer and License to Maim for all classes, and finally Heavy's Special Minigun The Iron Curtain (which he strangly calls Sasha in the game, which could mean that it was the default minigun but the heavy customized it a bit more.)

A Team Fortress 2 Heavy that uses his Shotgun often is called a "Fat Scout". This is because The Scout's primary weapon is the Scattergun, which is identical to the Shotgun except for a 25% higher damage-ramp-up. The "Fat" part is becuase the heavy is slow and large.

In Team Fortress Classic, the Heavy wears a bandana, similar to the Heavy Duty Rag from Team Fortress 2.

The Heavy mentions that his minigun weighs "150 kilograms" Which in pounds is 332lb. This shows the strength that the heavy has and why his melee weapon is just his fists.

The Heavy shows up in the game Poker Night at the Inventory which is a game where you play poker with characters from third party games. The Heavy can also earn a minigun and a hat playing the game.

In Team Fortress's comic Cold Day In Hell he has been called Misha by his 3 sisters hinting this may be his real name ( Note: Misha is short for Mikhail).

He has three younger sisters and a mother (father's whereabouts is unknown).

Although the Pyro can kill anything easily within range and has a solid amount of health, in long range he's as good as dead. This means although they will run over the Scout and Spy; the Scout can be tricky however, as he tries to stay away from you, and will try to pick you off with his pistol. If you meet him in close range you are likely to win due to his low health. The Soldier, Demoman and Sniper will easily take the Pyro out because of their long range weapons, if you are on low ammo and cannot airblast their projectiles (rockets and grenades/stickies primarily). However it is important to note that Snipers are vulnerable once exposed to a Pyro, but beware of their Jarate; if they coat you and hit you with the Bushwakka you will instantly die (as it is a critical hit), so try to reflect it, and the compression blast can allow Pyros to negate damage dealt by Demomen, as they use purely projectile weapons. Soldiers can still use a shotgun if a Pyro airblasts their rockets. Heavy, Engineer, and Medic classes can usually run from his flames while shooting at him/her, thus making ambushes essential. Medics regenerate health 3 hp/second (unless the Blutsauger is equipped), so afterburn deals no actual damage to Medics not using a Blutsauger. Against another Pyro, the Shotgun is best as the Pyro's suit prevents being lit on fire, though the direct damage from the flamethrower itself still occurs.

The Pyro's main weapon is their Flamethrower, which appears to be constructed from a propane tank, an old gas pump, a shower-head and other assorted plumbing parts; the overall appearance of the weapon is a very unique, 'homebrewed' effect. The Flamethrower weapon deals plenty of damage in close-quarters, but has a phenomenally short range. This means that an enemy can quickly move out of harms way to pick off the hapless Pyro. The Flamethrower also possesses a unique compression blast, or what some people call a "Airblast" or offically Compression blast ability. Not only is the compression blast able to blow away enemies far, but it can also be used to reflect dangerous projectiles (except bullets). It can reflect rockets to even an arrow from the Huntsman Longbow. This blast can also be used to help your team in a way, by blasting it at a teammate who is on fire, you will blow off the fire leaving your teammate saved. You also have to be cautious when using this ability as it uses a considerable amount of ammo, 20. Reflected projectiles do mini-crit damage, so if they hit the user who shot them, they will take mini-crit damage from their own shot!

The Pyro's secondary weapon (default) is their Shotgun. It is very reliable to the Pyro as it's the best weapon for the Pyro to use when combating another Pyro. Despite it being more effective in a Pyro vs. Pyro situation, it still has a very short range, making it ineffective at mid-range targets. The Flaregun solves this problem, because it shoots a projectile that will, on hit, set the enemy on fire,but because of its slow traveling speed, it will descend, which requires it to be aimed above the head. Because of both the Shotgun and Flamethrower having such a short range, the Pyro must use ambush tactics in order to kill enemies without getting much serious injuries. It is just like the other normal, pump-action shotgun used by many other classes in the game; but the rounds stay slightly more condensed at far range compared to the other classes.

In June 2008, Valve hinted that The Pyro may be in fact a female, or may not be human. On the TF2 Official Blog, Jakob Jungles posted an image that referred to the Pyro as "he" in the description. Although clearly referred to as a male, the card ends with the phrase 'if he is even a man at all.' This most likely suggests that the Pyro might not be human at all, but is also likely to keep players guessing at his gender. Also, the recent spy update the sentence "When Pyro hears about this she'll be inconsolable." Was posted on the TF2 Blog. Which was changed a few hours later to "Pyro's going to be inconsolable now."

In July 2012, after years of fans telling Valve to finish the Meet the Team Series, Meet the Pyro was finally released showing not only the weapons of the pyro, but also showing the Mentality and Understanding of the Pyro's Psyche. Compared to the Other Classes, the Pyro is the Most insane. He sees everything as a magical fairy tale land, which Valve dubbed "Pyroland", he sees enemy players as small, round, flying babies, and his acts of killing and maiming them to him is nothing more than playing with them.However,his mask might be the cause the Pyroland illusions. In the front of the mask, it reads "Optical Mask". Optical illusions, for example usually play tricks to your eye and mind, so the mask might plays tricks to the Pyros mind,thus causing Pyroland. This has been hinted by the pyrovision goggles which were introduced after Meet the pyro. If any class wore the goggles, all players both friendly and enemy will sound high pitched, explosions will be shown as confetti, when players take damage or die they laugh instead of grunting or screaming, and when players explode instead of body parts players explode into random items like bike wheels, cheeseburgers, and more.

Use your compression blast to help your teammates and yourself. Reflect rockets, grenades, and even stickies away, you can even reflect an enemy spy from backstabbing or sapping. You can also reflect people off cliffs to ensure their deaths. However, careful when doing this to scouts as they have double jump!

If an Ubercharged character approaches, try to keep it in one place by using compression blast or separate it from the accompanying medic. Or, if you are defending, say a full-uber medic you may want to strafe forward and airblast continualy to waste their ubercharge for at least a few precious seconds.

Attacking and retreating is generally better than attacking until one of you is left standing.

NEVER charge head on, as the Pyro needs ambush tactics to survive.

Switch to your shotgun to hurt enemies that are not in flamethrower range. Also use the Shotgun to make light work out of other Pyros.

Keep puffing your teammates with fire if you have nothing else to do. Sometimes a disguised spy will burst into flames.

You are an Engineer's best friend. Reflect rockets, grenades or stickies that come near his buildables. If anybody comes near, puff them with fire.

You can also take a sub-class, commonly called "Pybro", where your main focus is guarding an Engineer's nest/buildings. The set always has the Homewrecker, a melee weapon that removes sappers in a single hit, very useful against a Spy's Sapper. The primary and secondary can be generally anything, except the Phlogistinator (lack of airblast can't reflect people/projectiles away) and generally, the Backburner, due to the high airblast cost. However, sometimes this can be neglected with a dispenser giving ammunition, but you can't put out too many airblasts at a time, and you won't need the crits on back attribute on defense as much as, say a faster weapon switch to quickly take care of sappers or spies.